


If You Run

by shallows



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Cora Hale/Lydia Martin (mentioned) - Freeform, Demisexual Derek, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!Fic, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Domestic Violence, Single Parent Derek, Slow Burn, Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes (minor) - Freeform, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:13:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallows/pseuds/shallows
Summary: Derek wants desperately to ask something, anything, because in just some short weeks he’ll be required to start a new life with Stiles Stilinski, someone he only knows by name, professional status and vague, if strong, recommendations from two people he trusts. Stiles Stilinski is a stranger, yet he’ll have to trust the man with his life and with the very important life of his cub, and he’s not even allowed to ask the most innocuous questions about him.OR the Witness Protection Program fic no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert on witness protection programs or, if we’re being honest, anything related to law. All my knowledge comes from movies I barely remember and google I’m too lazy to heavily research on and is superficial at best. Therefore, I am bound to get many things wrong about how the whole system works, but try not to hold it against me. The great thing about fiction is that it can be only what we need it to be, nothing less and nothing more. Hope you enjoy the ride either way. :)
> 
> Not beta'd, all mistakes are my own. Rating is subject to change and will most likely jump to E at some point.

Derek shivers as the AC rumbles to life from where it’s stuck to the ceiling. The heat is quick to seep into the small room and warm Derek’s skin and he finds that he’s stupidly thankful for it. It feels like he’s been freezing for months, like this is the first time in long, drawn out weeks that he has been anything but ice cold.

He looks down to where Jack is sitting. His son is still playing with his truck toy like he’s been for the past ten or so minutes they’ve been sitting there, pushing it slowly back and forth on top of the plain white table that takes up most of the room, his body barely moving except for his arm.

Derek puts his hand on top of his son’s shaggy hair, painfully blonde and in desperate need of a haircut, and breathes in slowly. The deep inhale serves as much to take in the scent of Jack, still baby-like despite his five years of age and so much like pack and home and everything good in Derek’s life, as it does to calm him down a little, access the situation, tell himself that they’re safe.

He scratches his fingers along Jack’s tiny scalp, listens to his son make barely noticeable “vroom-vroom” sounds as the plastic vehicle moves back and forth on top of the table and his heart aches all over again.

He takes another moment to inhale deliberately and center himself. The past week had been a hard one. “Hard” probably isn’t the best word to describe it; he could think of at least a dozen words that would’ve described it better (harsher, infinitely more painful words). But when he calls it “a hard week” he can trick himself, if only for a few seconds, into believing that the horrible things that transpired during this one particular week never actually happened. It doesn’t help, nothing really does these days, but pretending that he can make things a little better tops not doing anything at all.

The click of the door opening and closing fills the room, the sound almost startling despite its softness. A cup that is steaming from the lip is put in front of Derek and he looks up, his hand stilling on top of Jack’s head.

Lydia Martin sits on the lone chair opposite Derek. She looks tired, Derek notices, and his chest tightens with guilt at the sight. In all the years that he’s known Lydia she has never once looked anything but perfect, but now the strawberry blonde hairs are out of place and even with the makeup dark circles are noticeable under her eyes, and it’s all his fault.

She smiles at him anyway - too soft for Lydia, who normally just sends smirks Derek’s way or engages him in playful glaring contests - and nods at the cup of what smells like hot chocolate, his favorite. Derek notices a smaller one sitting in front of Jack and Derek appreciates the try more than he can say, even though both of them know Jack will ignore his cup and keep playing with his truck, moving it back and forth mindlessly like he’d done the past days, the only sounds coming from him the same “vroom-vroom”s over and over and over again.

Derek grabs his cup. He doesn’t take the warm liquid into his mouth, he couldn’t even if he tried because his stomach feels too tight, but he appreciates how the cup feels almost scalding against his palm and how the smell of chocolate mixes with the one of Jack in the air and washes over him like a soothing balm.

Lydia clears her throat, her smile morphing into a grimace as she leans over to touch the back of Derek’s hand. He instantly swallows, knowing this could only mean one thing. He had been waiting for the news all day, hoping with every fiber of his being that they were good, knowing that he was just not lucky enough for them to be.

“They haven’t found her yet,” Lydia says, apologetic as though she feels that what happened was also her fault. Everyone around him seems to think that these days.

Derek nods slowly, almost numbly, and looks down at Jack again. His son doesn’t react to the news, but then again he doesn’t react much to anything anymore. He just sits with his toy all day, hasn’t spoken a word since the incident, and he will only eat if Derek becomes so desperate trying to make his kid swallow down something that he almost cries and Jack takes the food just to make Derek stop smelling so sad. Social services stepped in with a psychologist, but everything is still too fresh, the physical wounds gone but the emotional ones still too raw and painful for any progress to be made.

Derek turns back to Lydia.

“What do we do now?”

“Now we have to make a decision,” she says.

She opens the folder she had brought with her when she entered the room. It’s almost overflowing with papers, all related to the case, and Derek knows that whatever solution to the problem that she’s about to present him with is the best for both him and Jack. Derek didn’t choose Lydia as his lawyer just because she was his friend, or because she was his sister’s wife, but because she was the best lawyer in the entire damned town and Derek trusted that she was the best bet they had at the moment.

“They’re going to keep searching and they’re going to find her,” Lydia says, looking him fiercely in the eye and Derek feels momentarily better because she sounds so sure that he almost believes her. “But while she’s at large we need to make sure that there’s no chance in hell that she’ll find you.”

Derek watches her eyes move to Jack then, most likely trying to read his reaction to her words. The department had talked about putting Jack in another room during talks, but the only time Jack seemed to react was when he was taken away from Derek, and they had ultimately decided that the terror in the boy’s screams at being far from his father was a much worse punishment than being present for the hard conversations. They compromised, instead, to never mention Kate’s name when he was around.

“They’re going to make you an offer for a witness protection program.” Lydia grabs a stack of papers held together by a crooked paper clip and pushes it across the table. “Everyone is doing their best to speed up the process and get you in a safe place as soon as possible. Sheriff Stilinski has agreed to let me help figure out the plan, to make sure that what we’re offering is the best for you.”

Derek flips through the papers slowly. He had been expecting this, knows it’s the only viable option while Kate is still out there with her mind set on ending what she started, but he finds that it’s hard to read the draft of the program Lydia put in front of him and actually realize that he’s about to leave his family and his home behind so that he and his son can live.

“While we were making the plan,” Lydia continues, her voice soft as if she’s afraid that what she’s about to say will spook him. “I propositioned to the Sheriff that you and Jack don’t go alone.”

Derek looks up from the papers.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Lydia licks her lips and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

“They’ll obviously do everything they can to protect you, but I want someone in the house with you at all times, someone to keep you safe in any eventuality,” she says. “I know that it’s hard for you to trust people, especially now, which is why I propositioned someone I trust with my own life be assigned to you.”

Lydia reaches towards the stack of papers and pulls the one from the bottom only to then drop it on top of the pile. It looks like a resumé of some sort. There’s a picture of a vaguely familiar man on the corner and Lydia points at it with a finger.

“That’s Stiles.” She beats her finger twice against the picture. The paper rustles as Jack’s’ truck hits the corner of it once; before he rolls the toy the other way, still whispering “vroom, vroom, vroom” to himself, his cooling chocolate still untouched.

Derek suddenly realizes why he knows that face, even if the man in the picture looks different from the long-limbed, clumsy teen he remembers from his childhood.

“The Sheriff’s kid. Your best friend,” he says and Lydia nods, her expression serious.

“He’s with the FBI. He moved to DC when we were 18 and hasn’t been in Beacon Hills since then, his legal name isn’t the one everyone around here knows him by and he’s connected with the Werewolf Justice Department. He can keep you safe.”

Derek grabs the corner of the paper as he considers this. He never really knew Stiles when they were young, doesn’t know the man besides his name and memories of seeing him around town or at school whenever his mom made him pick Cora up. But he knows Lydia, knows that during her sophomore year, after her then-best-friend Allison died, she became a different person. He remembers how the stuck-up teenager his sister had an inexplicable crush on, suddenly became withdrawn and seemingly friendless, and how the only person she let into her life for a long while was one long limbed, mole speckled boy Cora was insanely jealous of, even if she was loathe to admit it.

Lydia and Stiles had been the main gossip in the high school that year and Derek had been the target of Cora’s many complaints about how the two didn’t go anywhere without the other. Even his cousin Jackson, who also had a crush on Lydia that year, had decided to rant about the unfairness of it all to Derek, because apparently Derek had become _that_ member of the pack without him even noticing.

Everyone even thought Lydia and Stiles were in some weird codependent romantic relationship for a while and neither of them bothered to correct anyone up until Cora was successful enough in getting Lydia’s attention Junior year and they started dating. So even though Derek barely knows a thing about Stiles, he does know just how important he is to Lydia, and being seen as someone Lydia Martin trusts with her own life is the biggest endorsement anyone could get.

Derek takes a deep breath. He notices that his hand is shaking a little so he presses his palm flat against the table. His other hand is still on top of Jack’s head and he takes a moment to close his eyes and feel the softness of his son’s hair against his skin.

“What’s the plan?” he asks, voice as levelled as he can make it sound. He doesn’t think he succeeds in hiding the shakiness, but if Lydia notices then she doesn’t comment on it.

“Someone that isn’t me or the Sheriff will allocate you and Jack to another state. California is not too big for her.” Derek winces at hearing this. He knows it, too. “Stiles will be there. You’ll get new identities, new social security numbers, new haircuts, whatever’s necessary. And then you’ll stay there and try your best to live your new life until they finally catch her and put her away for good.”

Derek takes his trembling hand to his mouth as he feels himself choking up a little. He looks at Lydia and he knows his eyes are watering despite his best attempts at staying collected. He feels Jack’s tiny hand grip his shirt then, the first sign that he’s been listening to the conversation the entire time, and it breaks his heart further.

“We won’t be able to talk with anyone until it’s over, will we?” he asks, already knowing the answer but unable to not make the question. “Not with my parents, not Cora or anyone in the pack. Not you,” he adds.

Lydia can’t even seem to force a smile anymore.

“It’s how it works. Sheriff Stilinski will be our only point of communication. He’ll call Stiles just like he normally would and he will make sure everything is good in your end and let you know how things are going in our end. He’ll do it vaguely as to not draw any attention towards his conversations with his son, but he’ll make sure Stiles gets the message.” She leans in again to give his hand a comforting squeeze. “This is the best anyone can give us, considering. In most cases witnesses are completely disconnected from their old life. This is the most I could do to make this a little easier for you.”

Derek nods. He feels numb, and it’s like the room is suddenly cold again despite the AC still roaring up ahead. He finally drops his hand from Jack’s head and wraps his arm around his son’s small body, feeling his presence like a tether.

He knows deep down that he probably would’ve refused the program had it been just him. His pack is safe, they’re protectors, and he knows that every single one of them would lay down their life to protect him and his cub. Derek knows that, were it just him, he would’ve trusted his pack’s protection to be enough. But Kate had already gotten to them once, before she turned her monstrosity on Derek and her own child. She had very nearly killed them all. If they stayed in Beacon Hills, it was only a matter of time until she managed to do it all over again and the second time she would most likely succeed.

The pack has already decided to send the children to stay with Jackson in London while Kate is on the run and the adults hunt her down, but they all know that Derek and Jack can’t follow. Kate will always be there following the two of them, will do so until she’s either arrested or they’re dead, and the other children couldn’t possibly stay safe if they were to go with them. Derek can’t risk leaving Jack in Beacon Hills, either, vulnerable despite the pack’s protection. Who knows how long it will take for them to find Kate? There are many of them, but she’s smart and cunning and ready to get rid of anyone who stands in her way by any means necessary. They can't trust that everything will be fine just because they have the numbers on their side.

Derek has already failed too much in Jack’s short life, more than he will ever be able to repent for, and he knows that he can’t fail again.

The thought of having to uproot himself and his cub from their home, of having to move miles and miles away from their pack until it’ll feel like they’re suffocating, hurts him in ways that he can’t describe. But losing his child, the most precious thing he has in the entire world, would hurt infinitely more.

So he gathers himself, holds Jack against him a little tighter and leans down to kiss the top of his head and scent him slowly before turning back to Lydia.

“Tell me what I need to do.”

*-*

The whole pack meets them at the Sheriff’s station to say goodbye. The details of the program aren’t fully hashed out yet, but they’re sending Derek and Jack to a safehouse where Lydia says other families in the same or similar situations stay until each of them is finally sent to their new homes.

The pack stays for as long as they can, surrounding Derek and Jack with their scents, soft words and affection. They’re given an hour and then Lydia comes back from whatever magic she was pulling and regretfully tells them that it’s time to leave.

They don’t have to pack. Kate burned down their house before disappearing, turning all their belongings to ash. Derek has a backpack with the few clothes the pack put together last minute, some toys the kids gave up for Jack and nothing more. Derek knows that the program will provide them with necessities for a while, knows that it’s not necessarily one more thing that he has to worry about, but it still makes him nauseous to think that one single human had managed to burn his life to the ground so easily and so soundly, and only because she saw him and their child as an abomination.

He hugs every member of the pack goodbye. His older sister, Laura, had already left to London with the children and Derek regrets not having held her a little tighter when they said their own goodbyes the day before.

His mom holds onto him for some long, aching minutes when it’s her turn, and when she lets go there are tears in her eyes and the irises are burning bright red. She frames Derek’s face with her hands and for a moment he feels like a child again.

“I’m scared,” he wants to tell her because he so desperately needs her reassurances that everything will be fine, but Jack is still clinging to him and Derek knows that now it’s his responsibility to be the reassuring party, that he can’t use his mom as a shield from the world anymore, no matter how much he wants to.

So, instead, he flashes his own blue eyes back and says, voice hoarse, “I’m going to miss you.”

His mom nods and leans in to kiss his forehead, her nose dragging down the side of his face as she scents him.

“You’ll be home soon,” she says, voice firm and sure. And he believes her, he has to.

Then Sheriff Stilinski arrives back at the station, puts a hand on Derek’s shoulder and, just like Lydia, tells him that it’s time to go.

The man is a calming presence, has been since the day he saw Kate squeeze Derek’s arm meanly and painfully in the produce section of the grocery store just because Jack asked for ice cream and Derek dared say yes. That had been over a year ago and Sheriff Stilinski’s number had been saved inside a secret pocket in his favorite leather jacket ever since, just in case.

That day, just a week ago, the Sheriff picked up the call on the first ring. Derek doesn’t know - doesn’t dare imagine - what would’ve happened if the Sheriff hadn’t cared about Derek and his son enough to be waiting for that call for a whole year. If the sheriff’s son is anything like his father, Derek thinks, then Lydia really couldn’t have found anyone better to keep him safe in the days to come.

The pack waves goodbye as Derek and Jack enter the Sheriff’s car, two other escort cars getting ready for the trip behind them. Lydia sits on the passenger seat to make the journey with them and they drive off. Derek looks back at his pack until he can’t see them anymore and then he closes his eyes and focuses on their scent and the sound of their voices until they’re far enough that those fade as well. Jack is sitting beside him, one hand moving his truck up and down his leg and the other holding tightly onto Derek’s thumb as though he understands what they’re leaving behind and feels it just as much as Derek, even if he can't say it.

Nobody talks about anything that really matters during the trip. Even though it’s just them, just people Derek knows will always work towards his best interest, they’re all running on the assumption that nothing is safe enough. The sheriff doesn’t talk about Stiles, making sure nobody, not even air, makes the connection between his son and this entire operation, and Lydia started working on the same principle the moment they left that room earlier in the day.

Derek wants desperately to ask something, anything, because in just some short weeks he’ll be required to start a new life with Stiles Stilinski, someone he only knows by name, professional status and vague, if strong, recommendations from two people he trusts. Stiles Stilinski is a stranger, yet he’ll have to trust the man with his life and with the very important life of his cub, and he’s not even allowed to ask the most innocuous questions about him.

He sighs softly and leans his head back, tilting it until he’s looking at his son. Dusk is falling, the muted lines of the sunset draping across Jack’s face and making the boy sleepy. Derek brushes his fingers rhythmically along his son’s hand that’s still clutching his thumb and watches him as the movement of the car and the soft lights lull him to sleep, his whole body going slack. Derek quickly grabs the plastic truck before it falls from Jack’s hand onto the floor of the car and starts slowly dragging the toy back and forth along his own thigh just like his kid had been doing.

The Sheriff and Lydia start a conversation about something Derek doesn’t bother listening in and he just sits there, lost in thought as he watches trees and houses come and go through the car’s window, as the sun dips in the horizon and the day darkens, as the world gets quieter and more daunting around them.

Derek listens to his son’s soft breaths and tries to imagine what their new life will be like, wonders how that familiar stranger will fit into them or how he possibly won’t fit at all. And he wonders, not for the first time, if he will still be the same Derek at the end of all of this and if he’ll ever learn to love the new him in case he’s not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still my own beta. Apologies for the inevitable mistakes. Enjoy. :)

They stay in the safehouse for a little over a week. While there, they can’t really do much other than wait, but Derek figures there’s at least one thing that needs to be done before they move.

He gets his hands on some clippers and cuts off Jack’s shaggy hair until it’s nearly shaven, so close to the roots that you can’t really see the blonde anymore. Jack doesn’t move during the entire process, doesn’t complain or react at all to the hair that’s falling around him. But when it’s over, and Derek turns him around in his chair to take a better look at him, there’s something about Jack’s eyes not being partially covered anymore that makes him look even younger and more vulnerable and scared than he did before, and Derek almost hates it for a second.

Derek lets his own beard grow until the hairs are at least half an inch from his chin. His hair has always grown back quickly, even for a werewolf, but Kate made him shave every day during the years that they were together so Derek had never known what he’d look like with a beard. He finds that he maybe likes it, even when he knows that if Laura was here she would’ve made a comment about him using his facial hair for more reasons than just a change in appearance. She would've called him out for hiding behind it, and he wouldn’t have been able to deny it.

On the ninth day they’re told to pack. They still only have those few clothes and toys the pack put together for them, but they’re given some food for the way and are reassured that once they’re settled in their new house that someone will make sure they get the money they need for necessities.

When their new documents are dropped in front of him, Derek stares at them for a while. They let them keep their first names, figuring that _Derek_ and _Jack_ are more than common enough. It’s a small relief to get to keep that part of himself; it feels almost like a promise that this isn’t definitive and maybe it won’t last for too long at all. But seeing _Derek and Jack Hansen_ stare back at him feels like a punch to the gut. He knows Hale is a common name, but to him it had meant something more special than most people in the world ever got a chance to have; _Hale_ had meant family, a place to belong, home. It had meant _pack_ , and pack was all those things put together and more. _Hansen_ was just another name to him, just a way to make him and his kid two in a sea of thousands, and all it meant in that particular moment was loneliness.

He puts off sliding the new ring on his finger for as long as he can. He threw his real wedding band into the woods when he took Jack and ran as fast as he could to save their lives. He remembers how the ring felt, like it was melting into his skin and rotting the flesh. He hadn’t always felt that way about it, obviously, but that day that ring had felt like a chain and he hated the feeling of being a slave to it so much that he discarded it the first chance he got.

This new ring is fake. It’s a cheap metal band covered in bright silver paint to make it seem like it’s worth much more than it really is. It doesn’t mean the same bad things as Kate’s ring did, but it’s still a chain in a way, a reminder that he’ll never be free until he gets to get rid of this ring too and take his child home.

He didn’t want this to be part of the deal, almost begged for it not to be, but Lydia grabbed his shoulders and said that the title _married_ isn’t a double edged sword; it could mean very bad things but it also could mean good. Being a husband had meant at first that Derek and his child got to suffer without many people questioning it until it was almost too late, but now that same title would mean no questions from their new neighbors when Derek arrived at the new house with a child and a man who he was going to share that house with. Pretending to be married to a man he doesn’t know terrifies him more than he’ll ever say out loud, but he also knows Stiles Stilinski is his protection so he ended up telling Lydia yes.

He finally puts the ring on when they get to the airport. They took a cab there, their driver an agent dressed as a civilian to make the whole process seem as natural as possible while still giving protection. He stays parked with his cab until Derek and Jack finally enter the huge building and then he drives off.

Derek knows there are other fake civilians in the airport who are there to make sure they board the plane safely, but he tries not to seek them out (doesn’t even know if he’d be able to spot them even if he tried) and does his best to breathe normally when he gets their tickets and waits.

The flight feels long, almost longer than that time he went with his sisters to London to visit their cousin, even though Derek knows that’s impossible. Jack is just as silent as he’s been the past weeks and Derek feels helpless. He understands what Jack is going through, won’t ever push him into doing or facing something he’s not ready for, but he misses the bright child who could talk anyone’s ears off at any given moment. Jack had been an early speaker, started talking sooner than anyone else in the pack, but now he’s so silent it’s almost like he never spoke at all.

When they get to Colorado Derek feels both relieved and like his stomach is tied in knots. This isn’t their final destination. They’re going to take a second plane to another state Derek wasn’t informed of just as a precaution, and Colorado is just a red herring in case Kate actually got her hands on some information.

Derek doesn’t think there are any agents disguised as civilians in this airport, but this is where he was told Stiles is waiting for them and he hates that he doesn’t know what to expect of their first encounter.

He’s momentarily thrown off when he steps into the main area of the airport with Jack hanging on his hip, his nose buried in Derek’s neck to help with the overwhelming scents of the place, and sees a tall man dressed in beige khakis and a floral print shirt waving at them excitedly with a huge glittery sign that reads “Welcome Home” with three exclamation points. Derek takes a second to notice the frankly awful drawing of two wolves in the corner before he’s distracted by the floral print shirt again. It’s an ugly shirt, baggy and way too bright, and it makes the man look like a stereotypical tourist. All he’s missing is the sandals or some flip flops.

Derek knows it’s Stiles. The man has such unique features that it would be impossible to mistake the line of moles running up his cheek and the bright, beta-colored eyes for anyone else. Derek moves slowly, hesitantly, because _what the hell_? The point of this whole operation was to make Derek and Jack fade into the background until they were barely distinguishable from the rest of the masses. The point wasn’t to turn this encounter into a show. But then he looks around and notices people cringing at Stiles behaviour and pointedly turning away and Derek wonders if this wasn’t carefully planned after all, some type of reverse psychology to make them a trio that other people see but want to forget instead of a trio who’s trying hard not to be seen.

Derek takes a deep breath and moves forward, determined to at least give Stiles some credit even if the way the man starts pushing past the crowd, like he’s a careless and clumsy baby deer, makes Derek want to back away as quickly as possible.

He knows what’s coming, was warned by Lydia that Stiles would play the part of husband perfectly whenever they were in public, but it still takes all of his self-control not to wolf out when Stiles, still nothing but a stranger, reaches them and throws his arms around Derek and Jack in a tight hold.

“I missed you so much!” Stiles yells loudly in his ear and Derek notices the werewolf teen that passes by them just at the right time wince at the noise.

Jack holds Derek tighter and for the first time Derek is thankful for all the smells in the airport that mask the spike of fear coming off his son in that moment. Stiles must notice Jack's reaction too; his bright grin doesn’t change and he doesn’t stop moving animatedly, but he moves slightly to Derek’s other side until he’s not touching Jack anymore.

It’s awkward and supremely uncomfortable, to have to stand there being touched by a human he doesn’t know, and Derek can't figure out what to say so he chooses to say nothing.

Stiles grabs Derek’s backpack from his hand and throws it over his shoulder, says in a way that’s almost wistful, “The house has been so quiet without you guys. Having dinner alone is the _worst_.”

Derek nods tersely, clears his throat and searches for something to say, anything. Stiles is good at pretending, at least he looks like he is, but Derek’s skills only go as far as hiding the pain after a beating so that Jack wouldn’t worry.

“Yeah,” Derek says, stilted, and Stiles doesn’t miss a beat.

“Well, that’s over now!” Stiles responds. He has so much energy, it’s giving Derek a headache. “Now I have you all to myself.”

Derek lets his hand be taken. Stiles’ palm feels hot against his and Derek wants to run away so bad he feels like throwing up, but Stiles has apparently been successful in passing them off as just another cringey couple at the airport and Jack is still safe in his arms, so Derek pushes down every instinct that’s warring inside of him and lets himself be led through the mass of people that’s dwindling and out of the airport.

Stiles doesn’t say anything when Derek drops his hand like it’s on fire as soon as they reach the car Stiles got for them, only smiles at him and puts Derek’s backpack on the backseat.

“You can strap Jack in,” Stiles tells him, pointing at the child car seat already waiting beside the backpack.

Stiles is a lot more contained now that they’re in the parking lot and there are few people around. He crumbles the huge poster he’d made and throws it in the trunk of the car, and then waits beside Derek while he straps Jack in.

Jack doesn’t want to let go of Derek at first, but Derek figures it’d be weird to be seen sitting in the back while his fake husband is driving, so he makes a compromise.

“Hey, bud,” he says to Jack, who’s holding onto Derek’s neck with both hands. Derek notices Stiles looking away, trying to give them a little privacy. “I’m just gonna be sitting in the front seat, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

Even if it’s been weeks since he last talked, Derek still expects Jack to protest this loudly, and feels the silence painfully when all he gets is a stubborn headshake. Jack looks like he’s going to cry and Derek’s chest aches.

“How about we hold hands?” he offers, lifting his pinky towards his kid. “I won’t let go if you don’t.”

It takes a few seconds but Jack finally lets go of Derek’s neck and allows his father to move into the passenger seat before latching onto Derek’s finger with his whole hand when Derek stretches his arm back. Stiles closes the doors for them and then gets into the driver's seat and the car rumbles to life.

It’s an awkward drive. Derek is sitting almost sideways so that Jack can see his face and his arm starts hurting from the weird angle 2 minutes in. Stiles talks the entire time, he’s the only one who does, and Derek marvels at how the man can just do that, like it’s easy. Stiles talks about his past week while still moving as much as he can while driving, tells fake stories about what he did and how much he missed them for this or that as though there’s someone else in the car who might be listening in and Stiles wants to reassure them that they are, in fact, a real family.

They’re going to stay in a motel for the night, pretend that they were actually planning on staying in Colorado before going back to the airport and flying to their last destination. Derek thinks that’s an unnecessary step, that it won’t really make a difference, and wishes they could just get this over with and move to wherever they have to move as soon as possible, but he doesn’t say any of it out loud.

Stiles has the tickets, but he doesn’t talk about them or about where it is that they’re going to live for the next weeks or months or maybe years (and Derek feels sick even just thinking that being away from the pack for that long might be something he’ll be forced to do). Stiles just keeps talking about their fake life and doesn’t shut up for more than a minute at a time, as though he can’t stand the thought of the awkward silence that would surely follow.

When they reach the motel, Stiles gets them a room. Derek holds Jack on his hip again and Stiles grabs their backpack plus a second bag from the trunk. He puts it on top of the bed when they get into their room and close the door behind them, and when he unzips it Derek can see it’s filled with clothes.

“Just in case,” Stiles explains. “We’ll throw the clothes you’re wearing away and then we can get you new stuff once we’re in the new place.”

He pulls a pair of blue jeans and a dark red t-shirt from the bag and puts them in a pile on the bed, before grabbing what looks like a small purple dress and looking at Derek ruefully.

“Not that I like to reinforce the stereotype that only girls get to wear dresses because that’s s-t-u-p-i-d,” he spells the word and Derek can’t help but lift the corner of his lips at that, just a little. “But just an extra precaution. She or anyone she got working for her will be looking for a man with a little boy, not a little girl.”

Derek nods, understands and appreciates all the tries at making them impossible to spot, even if they’re already a few states away from home. Derek doesn’t care that it’s a dress, doesn’t care that they’re trying to pass Jack off as a girl because that’s not something he’d ever have a problem with, but it does pain him to see another reminder that he has to hide Jack so he can be safe, that for them things can’t be easy anymore.

“Thank you,” he tells Stiles, more because he feels like he has to say something than the need to say it, even though he is thankful.

Stiles gives him a small grin and some tiny place in Derek’s mind recognizes that it’s a quite gorgeous sight, but the thought isn’t prominent enough for Derek to really pay much attention to it.

It’s past 10 pm, and Stiles puts his hand back inside the bag only to come up with pajamas this time. Derek takes them carefully and says “thank you” again, for lack of anything better to say, before turning to move towards the bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, suddenly, and Derek stops and turns slightly to look at him. Stiles looks a little bashful. “For the airport thing. I know you guys don’t like that stuff.”

Derek says, “It’s okay.” And it sorta is now that it’s over and Derek has his personal space back. He still doesn’t know Stiles, doesn’t really trust him if he’s being honest, but he seems genuine and for the moment Derek feels safe enough.

Stiles nods in thanks for the understanding and Derek turns to get into the bathroom with Jack and closes the door behind them.

*-*

Stiles doesn’t sleep, says he did it during the day so he can keep watch while Derek and Jack rest a little before they have to leave to catch their 6 am flight. He parks himself by the window and doesn’t make a sound while Derek and Jack lie together on one of the beds and try to sleep.

This Stiles looks different from the one he met at the airport and the one from the car ride. Derek finds himself looking at him in the darkness of the room, knowing that Stiles’ human eyes can’t catch him in the act, and he’s almost hypnotized by the way he stays so still it’s almost like he’s not there. Derek didn’t think the loud man with the floral print shirt could ever be this quiet.

He falls asleep sometime around 2 am, when the exhaustion becomes so strong he can’t help but shut down. Unlike him, Jack fell asleep the moment they hit the bed. The boy hasn’t had a problem sleeping since the incident; in fact, he sleeps too much and that freaks Derek out almost as much as the not speaking. Derek thinks he might be having silent bad dreams and that’s why he’s always exhausted, but whenever Derek asks him about it Jack just keeps playing with the toy truck he’s always dragging around and never says anything.

He used to tell Derek everything, before, when life was different. Pathetic as it is, his son was Derek’s best friend and Jack never kept anything from him, not even when he did something that he knew he’d be in trouble for. Derek misses it more than he can say.

He wakes up a few hours later to the smell of coffee and donuts and the turn of the lock as Stiles lets himself back into the room. Derek turns on the bed to see the other man standing there, now dressed in black jeans and a dark blue henley, a much different sight from the Stiles with the touristic clothes.

Stiles sees him looking and smiles brightly, waving the box of donuts in the air.

“Good morning,” he says, sounding way too cheerful for the hour. “I got breakfast.”

Derek sits up suddenly, his throat tight.

“Did you-”

Stiles, clearly already knowing what Derek is thinking, placates him with, “Don’t worry, I paid the girl at the reception to get these for us. I’ve been here.”

Derek exhales deliberately, and looks down at the still sleeping Jack while his heartbeat goes down to resting levels. He didn’t even hear Stiles call the reception, was apparently too tired to be woken by the sound, and he hates himself for it. How ridiculous is it, really, to be a werewolf who needs a human to protect him and his cub? He’s the apex predator and he’s useless; no wonder things turned out the way they did.

“You should eat, it’s almost time to go,” Stiles says and Derek nods. “I got you some body wash if you and Jack want to clean up a little before we leave. It’s the werewolf friendly stuff.”

“Thanks,” Derek says, voice rough from sleep, and Stiles makes a salute with long, skinny fingers that look like they’re covered in white sugar.

“Don’t mention it.”

Jack makes a grumpy noise when Derek tries to wake him up and his eyes flash yellow when he finally opens them. Derek flashes blue eyes back and drags a big hand over Jack’s prickly hair and down his cheek, covering the kid in his father’s scent even though they had already spent the night holding onto each other. In the morning, Jack almost looks like he’s back to normal, but he doesn’t say “morning, daddy” like he used to, and that's just another cruel reminder.

Stiles takes his place by the window and obnoxiously sings a song Derek doesn’t recognize while he takes a quick shower and washes Jack. They get dressed in their new clothes and Derek is glad to notice that they don’t have any particular smell and won’t feel itchy to their sensitive noses.

Stiles produces a plastic bag out of nowhere when they’re done and Derek drops their old clothes inside.

“We’ll throw these in the trash,” Stiles says before pushing what’s left of the donuts towards Derek. “You can eat in the car, right?”

Derek sits in the back with Jack this time, trying to coach him into eating something. He can’t make the kid eat a whole donut, but he manages half, and it’s probably sad that he considers this progress.

There’s someone Derek doesn’t recognize waiting for them in the parking lot and he worries for a second until Stiles passes the man the keys of the car and the bag of old clothes, says “Get rid of these,” and then motions for Derek to follow him into the airport when the man simply nods and gets in the car they just vacated. It's the first display of real power Stiles has shown in the few hours they've known each other and it leaves Derek feeling a little unbalanced.

They arrive at check in and Derek finally gets a glimpse at their destination.

“Pennsylvania?” Derek asks. He doesn’t really know why he feels so surprised by the revelation; it could’ve been any state, really, but Derek guesses something in him wasn’t expecting to have to live this far away from home.

Stiles shrugs.

“It seemed like as good a place as any,” he says.

Derek nods. He figures it doesn’t really matter anyway. He’d still be away from home even if he had stayed somewhere in California.

The woman who checks them in looks between Jack’s ID and his dress in judgement, but doesn’t comment on it, and the other humans in the airport seem to buy that Jack is a girl and think his short hair is due to some form of disease. Derek hears a couple of middle aged women whisper the word “cancer” when they settle on some chairs to wait for their plane, and Derek glares them down until they move two rows over and stop talking about them.

He hates this, all the assumptions and prejudice everyone around him seems to live by. Prejudice is part of what made Derek’s life so fucking horrible in the first place. He doesn’t want it anywhere near him or his cub ever again.

While they wait, Stiles tries to engage Jack in a game Derek doesn’t really understand, but Jack just plasters himself against Derek’s side and tries to make himself as small as possible. He still has the plastic truck with him and he chooses to roll it over his thighs and Derek’s, back and forth, and it’s as though he forgot how to do anything else.

Derek wants to throw that truck in the trash or possibly burn it. He doesn’t do either of those things, but he wishes he could.

If Derek thought the first flight was long, then this one feels like an eternity. Jack sits by the window and Stiles puts himself between Derek and the corridor before promptly falling asleep. His mouth falls open and Derek watches as his body slides a little off his seat and he starts snoring softly.

Derek finds himself thinking about how weird Stiles is. It's almost like there are two personalities trying to come alive inside of him and he keeps changing his mind on which one he wants to let out. In the parking lot he had seemed almost intimidating when he talked to the strange man, imposing and sure, dangerous even. But here, in this plane, he can just fall asleep on a whim and lie there looking like a defenseless teenager. The man seems like he can be everything at once and it sort of leaves Derek’s head spinning.

Derek, figuring it’s too creepy to keep staring at Stiles while he sleeps, turns to look out the window and watch the clouds pass by. He wishes he had a book to read while they fly; he wishes a lot of things these days, really. _Everything sucks_ , he thinks, and then hears Cora’s voice in his head say “suck it up, shithead” even though he knows she wouldn’t actually say that in this particular situation, but feeling like it’s what he deserves to hear, anyway.

When they get to Pennsylvania the sun is shining up in the sky. Stiles rents a car and Derek notices for the first time that Stiles brought with him the child car seat from Colorado, and his throat feels momentarily tight. He doesn't comment on it.

“It’s a good house,” Stiles says while he drives. Derek turns to stare as his profile from the passenger seat, his arm extended back so that he can hold Jack’s hand. Derek thinks absently that Stiles’ nose is weirdly cute from this perspective. “I helped choose it. It’s not very big but it’s good. It has a big backyard which is awesome.”

Stiles turns to look at him and Derek doesn’t understand why he looks so earnest. This house is a hideaway, not a home. Derek doesn’t need it to be more than what it is.

Derek looks around when Stiles says they’re almost there. It’s a nice neighborhood, a lot nicer than he expected, with a school and a big park nearby, and he wonders if the program really covers the costs of living in a place like this or if the pack contributed with some money so they could live comfortably. He doesn’t ask.

Stiles parks in front of a modestly sized house covered in brown bricks and with a nicely trimmed front yard. Derek stares at it like he’s seeing a house for the first time and he hates that he really needs to pee, because he doesn’t care how good the house looks, he doesn’t want to go inside.

He hears Stiles get out of the car and go around it, sees him stop when he realizes Derek isn't following, and turn around to ask, “You coming?”

Derek wants to say no. The urge to run and fly all the way back to California is almost all encompassing. He doesn’t want this, any of it. He doesn’t want a new house or a new neighborhood or a Stiles who hasn’t done anything wrong but is still just a stranger. He wants Beacon Hills and pack and to be able to put Jack in bed at night without worrying that anything might happen to him if he isn't looking for even just a second.

He doesn’t want this. He’s not ready.

He opens the car door, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and commenting, you guys are the best :)
> 
> This story isn't written, so don't always expect quick updates. My goal is to update at least once a week, but chapters will most likely come out without a schedule, just whenever I feel like it. Hope you enjoyed this one!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's a bit of fatshaming in this chapter. You can scroll to the end notes for a brief description.

The house is bigger than it looks outside, with a wide entryway, a large living room space, and big windows that let sunlight filter into the room pleasantly. It smells faintly of the werewolf friendly air spray his aunt Sarah likes to use around the pack house and Derek appreciates that someone tried to mask the scents of strangers that were in the house at one point before they arrived.

It’s summer, and outside the sun is shining bright, making the day impossibly warm during the late morning. But inside the house it’s nice and cool, and when Stiles closes the door behind them Derek feels the perspiration that gathered on the nape of his neck during the car ride run down his back like icy water.

Jack fell asleep in the car and is in Derek’s arms, drooling away on his shirt as though he’s so unbothered by the whole situation that he doesn’t think he needs to be awake for this. Derek wishes that was true.

“We need to go shopping before we settle in,” Stiles says from beside Derek. He seems to be enjoying the coolness of the house as well, his hands on his hips and head thrown back to expose a long neck. Derek silently judges him for having decided to wear a long sleeved henley in July; the flower print shirt seemed like a better option in retrospective.

“They put the house together, but,” Stiles continues, shrugging. “The rest is up to us from now on.”

Derek nods. The last thing he feels like doing after a long day of travelling and looking over his shoulder is to go shopping, but he gets it. This isn’t a fully paid resort holiday like the ones his uncle Peter loves to indulge in, even if he wishes he could pretend otherwise.

He watches as Stiles opens a cabinet just on the side of the entryway and digs through it, the sound of papers rustling evident. He makes a “ah-ha!” sound when he finds what he’s looking for and then waves what looks like a credit card at Derek.

“We can buy clothes, food and whatever else we need with this. It’s yours.” Stiles smiles and puts the card in Derek’s free hand. “Shall we go?”

*-*

The closest mall is only a 15-minute drive from their new house. Somehow Jack only wakes up when they enter the very crowded stores and then proceeds to latch onto Derek and look around wide-eyed the entire time, his toy truck digging into Derek’s chest from where it’s pressed between them.

Derek makes quick work of selecting some cheap outfits for both him and Jack and buys them without even trying them on, feeling jittery and wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.

Stiles follows him around the store, talking animatedly about one thing or another Derek isn’t really listening to in his haste. Derek notices him discreetly checking their surroundings as he talks, and how his wild gesturing is successfully keeping anyone in the crowded store from bumping into Derek and Jack.

He’s very good at using his eccentrics to distract everyone around him from noticing him do his job. It's an interesting quality.

Once they’ve paid for the clothes and a new pair of shoes for each of them just to say that they have something different, they set out to find a grocery store. The list Derek made in his head is short and cheap, just some vegetables and fruit, some pasta, chicken and milk, and the store brand cereal that’s as plain as they come but will make you full. Stiles raises an eyebrow when Derek claims to be done 5 minutes in and, somehow, it makes Derek want to hide or maybe throw up in Stiles’ shoes a little. Especially when Stiles takes hold of the cart with a soft but defiant look and starts going through aisle after aisle, picking up poptarts and yogurt, a lot of different types of meat, sweet bread and 3 whole different boxes of frozen pizza.

Derek watches the cart get fuller and fuller and the lump in his throat grows with it.

He vaguely remembers when he was a teen and shopping for the pack was a whole, elaborate thing. His dad was the best cook in the family and usually in charge of making the shopping list, and he would always make Derek and his sisters go with him to the store and help him carry everything home. Once a week they would fill 3 shopping carts between themselves, except on major holidays, in which case Derek’s cousins would also come and they’d fill _at least_ 4 carts.

But then he married Kate, and candy stopped being allowed because he shouldn’t ruin his teeth, and bread was expressly forbidden because who would want Derek if he became fat? Not even Kate would want him then, and she was already the only one who actually liked him enough to marry him.

It happened slowly but surely, and only one year into their marriage Derek stopped picking up ice cream, started throwing away all the cookies his dad baked for him and that Jack didn’t like as soon as he was alone, forgot what it was like to buy hot chocolate from his favorite coffee shop because just the thought of gulping down that much sugar and becoming undesirable made him feel sick.

He had tried to revolt against that mindset in the past weeks; he accepted the hot chocolate from Lydia even though he never drank it and ate his donut when Stiles bought them breakfast at the motel the day before. But even being miles and miles away from Kate hasn’t seemed to stop her influence from taking a hold of him, and he knows that the only reason he didn’t vomit that donut up as soon as he went on a bathroom break was because Jack was always right there with him and Derek had a responsibility.

Watching Stiles fill the shopping cart with unhealthy, unnecessary food is almost painful, but Derek just swallows and looks away from it. He tries to tell himself that this is okay, that Kate isn’t here to make Derek pay for the consequences of the reese’s Stiles just picked up, and that whatever opinions Kate has about Derek’s body don’t matter anymore and never really did. It mostly doesn’t work.

Stiles mentions that he left his personal car in D.C. and that they can’t drive a rented for forever, so they stop at a car dealership once they’re done shopping. Stiles had already picked out a cheap but efficient car in a bright shade of blue and they stop to collect it.

“We’ll return the rented tomorrow,” Stiles says, passing Derek the keys to the car he just bought. “You drive, right? You can just follow me to the house for now.”

Derek’s heart starts beating fast and it’s like they’re in the grocery store all over again. The last time he had been behind the wheel of a car was right before he got married and had Jack, when Laura decided to buy a camaro for her 26th birthday and took him on a test drive through town. It had been one of the funnest days of his adulthood and he had gone home thinking about getting an expensive, slick car of his own.

Kate didn’t let him drive, after; she convinced him he was too clumsy of a driver to keep himself or Jack safe and he believed her. She was so good at that, at making him think that the things she took from him were out of love and need to protect, that it took him a while to realize that this was her way of ensuring that he never left their house without her, that he was trapped.

Living the past day with Stiles, being given donuts without a second thought, filling up a shopping cart with food that’s just as much for eating pleasure as it is for sustenance, and being expected to just grab a car key and drive, feels almost surreal. Derek feels stupid and inadequate and he hates it. Hates himself, too.

So he snatches the keys off Stiles’ hands a little brusquely, mutters “Of course I drive,” and transfers Jack to the new car, trying to stop his hands from shaking when he gets behind the wheel. He’s thankful that Stiles doesn’t comment on any of it.

Stiles finally gives a tour of the house after they get back and put the groceries away. He starts with the three bedrooms on the top floor. They’re all furnished and nicely sized and the biggest one even has a balcony that overlooks the promised backyard that looks lush and green. Stiles says this one is going to be Derek’s bedroom, since it’s the farthest from the front door, while Stiles will take the much smaller one closest to the stairway. Derek tries to protest, doesn’t feel like he deserves a big room in a nice house, but Stiles claims that it’s his job to protect this house and everyone in it and that this isn’t a discussion that Derek will win, so he lets it go.

The third bedroom is clearly for a child, decorated with pale green and blue walls, a toy chest and a small bed that has what looks like Star Wars sheets sitting on top of it. Derek closes the door without paying much attention to it; he knows that’s not where Jack will be sleeping, anyway.

There’s a large bathroom on the top floor as well, with a shower stall _and_ a bathtub taking up only a third of the space. He had visited the bathroom downstairs before they left to the mall and now Derek realizes that it was so small it couldn’t even fit a one-person shower stall. The realization that he’ll have to share this bathroom with Stiles to shower in the morning leaves him feeling the type of weird he tries not to dwell on.

He already saw the kitchen when they put their groceries away, but when they go back downstairs Stiles takes the time to open each cabinet to tell him where everything is and shows him how to regulate the stove and the oven, and then the washing machine in the laundry room just off the side. Stiles puts Derek and Jack’s new clothes inside the washing machine and starts a cycle for them, and then leads them through the big living room they had already seen and to the front door.

He points at an electronic device with a blinking red dot.

“An alarm system,” Stiles says, looking at Derek with a serious expression. Jack stares at the red dot from his place on Derek’s hip and doesn’t blink. “There’s another one in the backdoor just to be sure. The backyard is a nice touch, but I chose this house because the windows are reinforced and,” he moves back into the living room and starts pushing the big bookshelf to the side until it reveals a small door. “Lydia made me promise I’d find you a place with a panic room.”

Stiles shows him how to use the panic room and Derek nods along, a little dazed despite himself. After, Stiles finally tells him about the small safe with a gun for an eventual emergency, and then they stand there staring at each other without knowing what to say until it’s almost painfully awkward.

Stiles opens and closes his mouth a few times before clapping his hands once and saying in a slightly pitched voice, “Well! It’s past lunch time so we should, hm, do that.”

“I could…” Derek starts, hesitant, but Stiles shakes his head.

It’s so awkward, it’s embarrassing.

“No,” Stiles says, quickly. “I’ll do it! You just… go do that werewolf scent marky thing you guys are obsessed with or… something. Is pasta okay?”

Derek nods (he feels like nodding is the only thing he’s done in the past day) and then Stiles is off to the kitchen in a hurry, a trail of noise erupting in his wake.

Derek goes back upstairs to his new bedroom and closes the door behind him and Jack. He takes a deep breath, glad that even though they’re in a new house, in a state he had never even visited before, that for now it’s just him and his cub, and that they’re safe.

He puts his kid on the bed and Jack looks at him seriously, his truck just held in his hand without movement.

Derek crouches in front of him.

“You okay there, bud?” he asks. “It’s been a wild day, huh?”

Jack looks down. His lips start smacking quietly and Derek wishes he could scream at something because all he gets in response is a “vroom-vroom” as Jack starts moving the truck back and forth on the bed.

Derek tries for a smile.

“Alright,” he says. “You don’t have to answer that. Do you want to look around the house with me? It’ll be just like we did in aunt Cora’s new house, we’ll touch everything we want. That’s fun, right? It’ll make you feel better.”

Jack bites his bottom lip and his nose twitches a little.

Derek knows that the fact that this house doesn’t smell like them is making the experience of being so far from home even more overwhelming. He also knows that Jack loves to touch things and leave his scent all over them; he used to say that it made him feel like he could spread himself all over the place like the elastic man he saw in some of Derek’s old comic books. “It’s like I’m _everywhere_ , daddy! Like I’m so so big, daddy, I’m like the moon!”. He used to say “like” a lot and had an adorable lisp that melted everyone’s hearts, and he loved to hug people and animals and things and leave his scent all over them like he was giving them a present. It was as though he was saying “Jack was here and he loved you with all his little heart.”

Jack stops moving his truck and looks at Derek while still biting his lip, like he’s considering it.

Derek decides he isn’t too much of a bad parent for baiting his kid and says, “We’ll even touch the toilet.”

Jack’s eyes grow wide. He has had a weird fascination with toilets for the past year, but he knows he isn’t allowed to touch them in other people’s houses because Derek had figured that letting your kid grow up thinking that leaving your scent on toilets was a normal thing was probably a bad idea. Which is also what makes this the perfect bait because despite everything that happened, it’s always hard for a kid to refuse any opportunity to do something he shouldn’t without consequences.

Jack thinks about it for at least a minute and then he slides his butt off the bed until his feet are on the floor and wraps his tiny arms around Derek’s neck in a hug. Derek feels his chest tighten with how much he loves his kid. Jack then pulls back, grabs Derek’s hand and starts tugging him around the room to start their scenting ritual.

It’s not like it used to be; Jack isn’t running around screaming in delight and playing tag with the walls and the furniture like he used to. Now he’s a lot more subdued, shy almost, even though Stiles is still in the kitchen and he’s alone and safe with his dad. But Derek can tell by his kid’s scent that Jack’s emotions become a little less sad and distraught, and, for the first time in weeks, he actually believes that his child will be okay.

*-*

They sit down to eat a late lunch with Stiles a little while later. Jack is in a better mood after getting to hug the toilet, so he actually eats without a fight when Stiles puts a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of him.

“We should get our stories straight before we meet the neighbors,” Stiles says after he sees everyone take their first bite, not even waiting until he finished shewing his own.

Derek grimaces at the sight. He scrapes his fork against the plate in front of him, moving the food around, and sighs, nodding his head once.

“Okay,” he says.

For the first time since they met he allows his eyes to travel down to Stiles’ left finger, and it’s just as weird as he thought it’d be to see the matching silver band on Stiles.

“So, I’m a writer, which explains why I’ll be working from home,” Stiles says, his long fingers drumming against the table. Jack is looking at him and there’s a frown between his little eyebrows and sauce on his cheek. Stiles gives him a grin before turning back to Derek. “You’re currently unemployed. We don’t want to give you a fake profession so you can look for a job later on without getting a lot of questions. You know, in case we have to stay here longer than expected.”

Derek swallows a bite of pasta forcefully. His plate is still mostly full, but Derek distractedly played with his food long enough that it looks like someone ate and then threw up the whole meal back onto the plate.

“We moved here because I wanted a new scenery for inspiration.” Derek lifts an eyebrow at that and Stiles scoffs. “Don’t worry about it sounding far-fetched, I can talk my way through it like it’s a walk in the park.”

Derek barely knows Stiles, but he doesn’t doubt that.

“We've been married for fours years and I obviously proposed at Disneyland because everyone proposes at Disneyland,” Stiles continues.

Derek feels like he can’t stop himself from retorting with, “Why were you the one who proposed?” before he can stop himself, years of being the boy in the middle of two very loud, very sarcastic sisters finally showing through. Derek feels embarrassed that he said it, that he said anything at all, and he quickly forces his lips shut.

Stiles grins, though, looking immensely pleased that Derek finally joined the game.

“Because you’re shy and I’m used to being rejected by really hot people so I wasn’t scared of asking,” he says, cheekily.

Derek feels an almost overwhelming urge to hide his face at that, but Stiles keeps talking animatedly and for the moment it feels easy to forget the embarrassment and discomfort of being almost complimented, and he stays in place just listening to Stiles.

They spend the rest of the afternoon inventing a life together, eat the rest of the spaghetti for dinner when Stiles claims to be hungry, and then decide that the day has been too much and go to bed at barely 7 pm.

They say goodnight at the top of the staircase, Jack a sleepy lump against Derek’s leg. Stiles smiles warmly at the kid before turning to Derek.

“I’ll be right here if you need anything, okay?”

“Thank you,” Derek says in response, and finds that he can’t look into Stiles’ earnest brown eyes so he turns to gaze down at Jack who’s blinking slowly, his tiny hand grasping onto Derek’s jeans.

“Sure,” Stiles says, still smiling.

Derek starts walking with Jack down the corridor towards his new room.

“Derek,” Stiles says suddenly and Derek looks back at him. “I’ll keep you and Jack safe. You have my word.”

Derek swallows against the lump in his throat and he doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just turns and enters his room, closing the door on Stiles’ face.

He goes through the motions of getting himself and Jack ready for bed and then lies awake for hours wishing he could open the window to see the moon but feeling too scared to do it. Jack lies cuddled up to his side with his head pillowed on Derek’s bicep and breathing warm, humid air against Derek’s skin. Derek scratches the back of Jack’s ear in slow, soothing motions as he looks at the dark ceiling and considers how bizarre everything is.

Just a little more than a day ago he was in California, feeling lonely and scared, and with just his 5 year-old child by his side. And now he’s more than just a few states away, still feeling pretty lonely and scared, and with his 5 year-old child by his side plus an FBI agent who walks around with floral print shirts like that’s inconsequential and is wearing a fake wedding ring that matches Derek’s.

He can hear Stiles’ heartbeat down the hall, and knows the exact moment that the man lies down and falls asleep. It feels oddly intimate to be able to listen as Stiles slips into slumber in this new house, in this place where they don’t know anyone but each other (and barely even know each other, really) and where they’re sharing a private life, even if it’s out of necessity.

Derek hasn’t had anyone new come into his life in the past 5 years. In fact, he only had people pushed out of his life until his inner circle was just Jack and Kate, and even his pack started feeling like a distant relative.

Having Stiles around all the time, and knowing that this is just day one of god knows how many days or weeks of sharing a life on a 24/7 basis, fills Derek with a deep sense of dread.

Whatever is about to unfold, Derek knows he’s not even remotely prepared for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: They're all at the supermarket and Derek is watching Stiles grab a lot of unhealthy food for them to take home and he's remembering his experiences with Kate and how she fat-shamed him. It's very brief, but it's clear that this is something she made him struggle with for some time.
> 
> I just realized that I should probably warn you guys that a character who's a main in the show is dead in this fic (besides Allison). I didn't want to say anything because I want to introduce that particular fact later in the story, so you can read the spoiler [on my tumblr](http://sterek.tumblr.com/private/173712916021/tumblr_p8fgagL6QY1tly0aw) (It's not a big spoiler, but just in case this is something that could potentially turn you off the story).
> 
> I don't know if I'll be able to post a second chapter this week because I'm so busy, but I'll try!
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta read.

Derek wakes up the next morning to the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by water cascading in the shower and Stiles’ voice breaking out into a quiet rap song Derek can barely understand. He turns his head towards Jack, who’s lying on his stomach next to him, and flashes his beta eyes to be able to properly see his kid in the darkness of the room. Jack has his mouth slightly open, drool collecting on the sheets bellow him, and seems to still be very much asleep.

Derek lifts his fingers to drag them soothingly over Jack’s head and to scratch softly behind his ear as he waits for Stiles to be done next door. He has never been more thankful for his enhanced hearing that allows him to detect when Stiles is finally back inside his room. The last thing he wants to do first thing in the morning is awkwardly meet an FBI agent he barely knows outside a bathroom they have to share, at least not so soon in their stay.

He waits a few more minutes until he hears Stiles come out of his room and walk down the stairs before he rolls over towards Jack and tickles him softly below the nose to start waking him up. The clock on the wall downstairs hit 9 am about five minutes ago, which means that Jack has been sleeping for way too long once more. It worries Derek to see him this lethargic, but hopefully being so far from home in a more stable environment will finally help bring him back to normal, or a least a new level of normal that isn’t botherline unhealthy. At the moment, Derek wishes for that more than anything.

It takes a few minutes to wake Jack without startling him out of his sleep, but eventually he’s blinking his eyes open and Derek manages to get him out of the bed and into the bathroom with him. The entire shower, Jack leans against the wall with his eyes half closed while Derek lathers his head with soap, and doesn’t say anything or even seems appreciative of the head rubs that he used to love before. Derek finds himself discouraged once again, but he tries not to let it show on his face or in his scent. He knows that Jack would take Derek’s sadness to heart and none of them needs an added layer of guilt on top of everything else.

When they get out of the stall and Derek is involving Jack in a fluffy towel, there’s the sound of footsteps in the hall followed by a knock on the door.

“I got your clothes out of the dryer,” Stiles’ voice comes from the other side.  “I’m making breakfast so just come down when you’re ready, okay?”

Then he walks away and Derek is left feeling a weird sort of warmth in his chest that wasn’t there before. He hadn’t even remembered that they didn’t have a closet full of their own clothes anymore, didn’t even think to go downstairs fetch from the laundry room the cheap clothes they bought yesterday before getting into the shower. But Stiles did it for him, without even being asked, like taking care of them is something he always did. It’s a thought Derek vows not to dwell on.

He helps Jack get into some clothes before getting dressed himself, and then kneels in front of him and tries to catch his kid’s eyes.

“You doing okay today, buddy?”

Predictably, Jack doesn’t say anything. Instead, he does his best to avoid Derek’s face and looks at the wet towels Derek had dropped on the floor earlier.

“Jack? Are the new clothes alright?” Derek tries again, and waits a few seconds for an answer he doesn’t get. “Do you feel itchy?”

He puts his hands on Jack’s tiny arms and squeezes softly, making the child shiver a little. Reluctantly, Jack shakes his head no, and then moves forward to wrap his arms around Derek’s neck and hold on tightly.

“Okay,” Derek says. “That’s good.”

He wraps his arms around his kid and hugs him back for some long seconds before gently detaching himself from Jack and pushing him back a little to look at him. He manages to catch Jack’s eyes this time.

He pauses for a second, then tentatively says, “We’re going to have breakfast. With Stiles.”

Derek pauses again, before taking a deep breath and straining his hearing to make sure Stiles is back downstairs and out of earshot.

Yesterday had been, for lack of a better word, crazy. By the time the day ended, Jack was too exhausted to have any sort of chat - no matter how one-sided it would’ve been - with his father and Derek was no better. But there’s still something Derek needs to know, with absolute certainty, before deciding that this - living with a stranger and pretending to be his family for how long it’ll take to find Kate - is something that he can really go through.

“I’m going to ask you something serious and I need you to shake your head yes or no, okay bud?”

Jack knows what the word _serious_ entails so he nods his head slowly, just once. Derek looks at him and part of him misses the way Jack’s shaggy hair used to fall over his eyes, before, and how Derek would have to swipe it away and would always playfully threaten to shave it all off. Still, a bigger part of him is still stupidly grateful that he can look at Jack’s dark roots and lack of blonde hair and pretend that his baby is all his, that all of his parts came from Derek alone, and that half of him didn’t come from someone who dared look at Jack and call him a monster.

“Do you feel safe here?” Derek asks slowly. “With Stiles?”

Regrettably, Jack also understands all too well the meaning of the word _safe_ and the importance of it. He bites his bottom lip and Derek can see his tiny fingers twitching, probably already desperate to grab his toy truck they left in the bedroom. But he nods his head, a reluctant yes, and the tightness in Derek’s chest eases a little.

They can do this. It’ll be fine. _They_ will be fine.

*-*

Derek remembers the breakfasts in the pack’s house for how chaotic they were, how everyone would haphazardly sit around the big table and grab stacks of pancakes from the huge tray sitting in the middle, or how at least three people would fight over the last box of cheerios and eventually lose to uncle Peter who was taller than all the kids and would hold the box above their heads with a mocking smirk on his face. Derek’s father had always tried to convince the whole pack that breakfast was the most important meal and tried to get the entire pack to eat together, but everyone was always late for something or another, and not too bothered to act cordially so early in the morning, that it was always the farthest thing from fancy.

Breakfast in the house he shared with Kate meant half of a protein bar for Derek if he was lucky and plain cereal for Jack. Derek used to steal ziplock bags of sugary cereal from the pack house whenever he could and secretly add it to Jack’s bowl to make the meal a little better, but there was nothing particularly special about it either.

Now, however, Derek smells the bacon and the eggs as soon as he leaves the bathroom and the smell of freshly squeezed oranges reaches him in the stairway.

Stiles is in the kitchen humming to himself, knife in hand as he peels and slices honest to god fresh fruit into three small bowls. The small table is set perfectly, almost weirdly so, and it looks like something from a catalog Lydia would enjoy to look through.

“Good morning,” Stiles says when he notices Derek enter the room with Jack on his hip. He sounds chipper, as though he’s been awake for three hours instead of just under one, and Derek finds himself feeling inadequate yet again.

He used to be a talker when he was a teen. He was the captain of the basketball team, had straight A’s for the entirety of his high school experience, boys and girls alike seemed to find him quite attractive, and he even found out he was kind of good at singing when he joined the music club to hit on a girl he had a crush on, which upped his popularity even more for a while. He was a confident kid, didn’t really lack any self-esteem and was, quite honestly, fantastic at both small talk and shameless flirting.

He hasn’t been like that in years. It’s funny how some events in your life, or the enforcement of a bad routine for years and years, can ruin the very foundations of your being so seamlessly. He can barely talk to people now, especially those he hasn’t known long enough that he can implicitly trust them, and it’s like his throat physically closes up when he tries to say anything.

So to be confronted with all that is Stiles this early in the morning is an incredibly daunting experience.

He does his best to work around it though, still thrown off by the display and the smile on Stiles’ face.

“Good morning,” he says back after a few seconds. He knows it sounds stilted, almost wants to go bury his head in the backyard as he beats himself up internally for being so awkward.

Stiles only smiles sunnily, though, and gestures with the knife in his hand towards the empty chairs by the table.

“Sit down, I made a bunch of stuff.”

Derek sits slowly with Jack on his lap. Stiles goes back to peeling fruit and Derek spends at least two minutes rehearsing a phrase in his head before he says, “You didn’t have to do all this.”

Stiles looks at him from below his eyelashes, his head still bent towards the countertop. There’s a small smirk on his face.

“Oh don’t get used to it,” he says, his voice sounds teasing. “I’m trying to impress my new roommates so they won’t kick me out.”

When Stiles grins then, all Derek can think is _his teeth are so straight_.

The sound of Jack rolling his truck over the table is what distracts Derek from that particular thought and Derek realizes that he’s been silent long enough that Stiles is talking again.

“You guys don’t seem to be big talkers,” he’s saying, gesturing wildly with his hands like he can’t stop himself. “Which is cool! Coolio, totally a-okay, silence is great! It’s just totally not my thing, dude. So I gotta win points for being great at other things besides the silence, amirite?”

He lifts his hand up for what’s possibly a high-five that neither of the werewolves responds to. Derek can see Jack looking at Stiles suspiciously, even if not afraid. Stiles doesn’t deflect, though. He gives himself a high-five as though that’s a normal thing everyone does and goes back to the fruit.

He’s peeling mangoes now. Derek doesn’t think he’s ever had fresh mangoes in his life. The entire thing is almost more surreal than being far from home and living with a stranger he has to pretend to be married to.

Derek doesn’t get to try and say anything else though, because the tentatively light mood is ruined by the doorbell.

Derek’s hands tighten instinctively around Jack, though his eyes are trained on Stiles whose entire body language has abruptly changed the same way it had in the motel in Colorado. The man is calm, seemingly unbothered on the surface, but his right hand grips the knife tightly and his facial features have grown harsher, unlike the carefree slope of his grin just seconds before.

“Stay here,” he tells Derek, his voice firm but still somewhat soft.

Derek nods and swallows thickly. It’s probably nothing. They haven’t been in Pennsylvania long enough to be discovered. Nothing could’ve gone wrong so soon. But he still sits on the edge of his seat, ready to run away with his son at any second should he be wrong about everything.

He hears Stiles open the door and is immediately relieved to hear Stiles’ cheerful voice return as he greets whoever it is on the other side.

“Honey,” Stiles calls back from the entryway. “Come meet our neighbors.”

Derek gets up slowly, Jack attached to his hip and neck, and walks out of the kitchen trying not to look like he’s poised to run but probably failing anyway.

The first thing he notices when he reaches the door is the knife in Stiles’ hand that he’s concealing behind the open door, grip tight even if the man himself looks relaxed and unworried. Derek appreciates it for what it is, knows that Stiles got information on all of their neighbors before choosing the house and most likely recognized who’s at the door, and that the knife is merely a precaution plan always at the ready.

The second thing he notices is the werewolf couple standing at the door with a large plate of what smells like cookies and big grins on their faces.

When Derek joins Stiles at the entryway, the woman, who's in possession of wild blond hair and startling white teeth, rakes her eyes over Stiles and Derek’s bodies in turns and then says, “I love gay people.”

The tall black man behind her chokes a little and Derek is startled by the bluntness of it all.

“Erica!” the man says, his tone more judging than surprised.

The woman shrugs unapologetically.

“What? It’s true.”

Stiles lets out a throaty laugh at that, his long neck stretched as he throws his head back a little.

“I’m bisexual, actually,” he tells her and Derek doesn’t know why that revelation suddenly makes him feel even more self-conscious about living with him. It’s not like this is completely unexpected; Stiles did accept to pose as his husband, after all, and the reality is that most straight men wouldn’t have been caught dead in this situation. But it still feels like a surprise.

The woman, Erica, smirks.

“Mhm, me too,” she says. And then, “I’m going to love having you around.”

The man behind her rolls his eyes. Stiles turns to him and asks, “Is she flirting with me in front of my husband?”

He shrugs. “She flirts with everyone. Don’t get a big head over it.”

Erica scoffs.

“I don’t flirt with everyone,” she says, before winking at Jack who is still plastered against Derek, his hands holding tightly onto his truck and Derek’s shirt. “Only the cute ones.”

And then she’s shoving the plate towards Stiles and doesn’t even check to see if he’s caught it before she’s grabbing the tall man’s hand and walking away.

“Anyways, we came here to tell you that there's a neighborhood barbecue next Saturday at 1 pm at our house,” she yells as she walks across the lawn. “I’ll come find you if you miss it.”

The tall man, whose name Derek never even has a chance to learn turns towards them and waves goodbye and then both of them are gone just like that and Derek, Stiles and Jack are left standing in the doorway of their new house with a plate of cookies and a brand new lunch invitation.

*-*

They return the rental car after lunch.

On their way back Stiles parks in an empty street and waits for five minutes in silence until a phone starts ringing in his pocket and he answers the call with, “Hi, dad.”

Derek looks out the window as he listens to the call and feels his entire body burn with the need to take that phone from Stiles’ hand and force the Sheriff to tell him all the news about his case, if something changed in the short time he’s been away from Beacon Hills, and most of all beg him to put his mom on the phone so that Derek can hear her voice again and stop feeling like he’s suffocating and all alone.

Jack’s sweaty hand on his is the only thing that keeps him from doing any of that, and Derek forces himself to be satisfied with the “everything is the same around here” reply Stiles gets from his father. Everything is the same. Kate is still alive and free, but Derek running away didn’t make her turn on his pack and hurt them just like he feared it would. They’re okay. And for now, that needs to be enough.

Stiles insists they go to a bookstore after, and the fleeting hopeful look Derek sees in Jack’s face before the boy goes back to looking uninterested in anything but his truck makes Derek acquiesce to the idea.

There’s a small and inviting store only five or so minutes from their house. The girl working at the desk, whose name tag reads _Kira_ , is very obviously a kitsune, her aura as radiant as the smile she gives them when they go inside. Derek tries to give her a smile that probably comes off looking more like a grimace, appreciative of the fact that this town seems to be promisingly diverse considering that the 3 people he met so far, bar Stiles, have all been a supernatural being.

Derek knows deep down that doesn’t mean much, that even if his personal monster is a human it doesn’t mean that all monsters are the same. When he was growing into his strength and the claws and the fangs, his mother sat him down multiple times to help him through the transformation. He remembers her telling him, “We’re not what they make of us, Derek. Others do not define us. We’re what we choose to be and that will always be our truth. We’re predators, but we don’t have to be killers. Always remember that.” But truthfully, he hadn’t understood what that meant until a werewolf boy in Laura’s class attacked and killed an innocent girl when Derek was 15, just because he could, and a human man almost beat his son to death that same year a few neighborhoods over.

So Derek learned that someone’s species did not define what kind of person they were, that there was no linear correlation between the size of one’s claws and the darkness in one’s heart. But he still appreciates being surrounded by others more similar to him in a moment like this, when he feels stupidly vulnerable at all times.

“Pick as many books as you want, babe” Stiles says from beside him, loud enough for the employee to hear. He squints his eyes at Derek as the sun that’s coming through the shop’s windows hits him square in the face and then laughs. “We don’t even have a TV yet, we need something to not get bored of each other.”

Derek smiles awkwardly at him when Stiles bumps him softly in the side, clearly trying to show them off as a nice and playful couple.

Stiles immediately goes to the comic book section and beams at Derek and Jack before enthusiastically looking through a few Star Wars volumes. Derek, for his part, tentatively grabs a Wonder Woman comic when he notices Jack eyeing his favorite superhero with practiced disinterest and starts flipping through it, deliberately making sure Jack can see it as well.

“You’re a DC fan?” Stiles hushed voice is suddenly a lot closer and Derek looks up startled to find him looking at the comic over his other shoulder. Derek finds himself wondering how the three of them must look to other people. He hopes and fears in equal amounts that they're able to perform the part of a married couple well. “Tell me you at least also like Marvel, dude. They have Spider-Man! And the Avengers, dude, _the Avengers_.”

Derek does like Marvel. He has loved superheroes since he was a kid and he and his sisters would escape to the tree house they built with their father and read comics for hours and hours. They had a big collection between the three of them and both sets of superheroes featured in the issues.

But Stiles is looking at him as though Derek is about to ruin all his childhood dreams, and, for some inexplicable reason Derek feels this unstoppable urge to tease him about this.

“The Avengers are lame,” he says, deadpan, his neck heating up a little when he realizes that, for all that he finds it hard to talk to people, he doesn’t seem to be able to stop himself from teasing a stranger he just met yesterday and that he knows he needs to be careful with. Stiles is still not someone he trusts, after all.

Stiles gasps loudly in the quiet of the bookstore and the employee looks up at them wide-eyed, startled.

“How could you say that?!” Stiles asks, sounding breathless as he inhales against Derek’s face, clearly putting on a show, before he says more quietly again so that the kitsune won’t hear. “Ugh, I bet Batman is your favorite. Those frowny eyebrows can’t lie.”

Derek can’t keep from rolling his eyes and, again, finds himself surprised with how easily he can just do that around Stiles. It’s something he doesn’t want to think too hard about, not ever.

Between themselves they get a nice but contained amount of reading material and then they park themselves in a quiet coffee shop for an hour when Stiles says that being casually seen around town is the best way to not be noticed.

It’s only when they’re back at the house, when Derek and Jack sit on the couch with a Harry Potter book and a blanket wrapped around both of them while Stiles sprawls on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, that Derek realizes that he spent the whole afternoon without looking over his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day I started writing this chapter something happened in my personal life that completely broke me. It's been a really hard process trying to go back to normal life. I'm not satisfied with this chapter at all, but for now I felt that I needed to post it as it is or I'd never be able to post again. Thank you for all the support you've given this story. I'll do my best to update soon. <3


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